Fwoggie

I might be missing something, but having checked out all those images, T&C doesn't seem too bad at all considering it just got hit by a cat 4. Damage seems restricted to a fair bit of flooding and superficial damage to buildings - the sort of thing I'd expect in a cat 1 not a 4. I'd expect some weaker buildings to be flattened in a cat 4.

It hasn't petered out at all - but it has gone outside of NHC's geographical remit and is now subtropical. If you'd like to track it, you can find information at http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/fmtbltn.pl...wbc.hsf.at1.txt - I would expect that wunderground.com will also stop covering it if it hasn't already done so. and yeah, we're gonna get a bit windy and rainy. First storm of Autumn I guess.

He went to the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, NT, Australia. They play it in a darkened room, it's quite something. Check out wikipedia's entry for Cyclone Tracy. It was a heck of a storm; particularly tiny yet viciously strong - the debate is out as to whether it was a high cat 4 or low cat 5. Either way, total laminate floor for it to hit xmas eve night of all days - many residents were in xmas mood, not paying attention to the weather and didn't see it coming. It's notorious in Australia's identity and for sure has to be one of the most well known cyclones/typhoons/hurricanes that has ever happened.

I'm trying to find diameter data for Gustav, currently failing. Side note: The remnants of Hanna look like they're going to give you a good chance of breaking your 2008 gust record :-)

Winds gusting to storm force now in T&C's. Some amateur observers on other boards are speculating about a slight wobble to NW. If it does, it'll skim Cuba rather than hit it, and that would mean it would keep its intensification as it heads NW into the GOM... :lol:

The centre of it is 205 miles SW of New York (or as makes no difference). It looks like they're going to get the outer rain bands any time now. I would be surprised if the tennis restarts. I suspect that's probably it for the day now.

Er, they're playing right now, Murray is 2 sets up :lol:

Currently looks like skimming W Ireland lunchtime our time Wed, through that night into Thursday for N Scotland. NHC currently suggests 45 knots sustained, 55 knots gusting. Equivalents in real money are 51mph sustained, 63mph gusts. Not that big a deal for N Scotland, they get that sort of thing in winter storms. All it means is that the rain will be a bit warmer hopefully. :lol:

MM. The joys of personal pride. Assuming Ike does make a bee line for NO, it will depend on how strong it is as to how many leave again. Hopefully very few will point to Nagin crying wolf and ignore it. When Nagin called it the mother of all storms it looked like it would be. It was forecast to be a high cat 4 low cat 5, but crucially forecast with storm surges of 22 feet at that moment in time. As a reminder, the highest storm surge recorded during Katrina was 11.5 feet in the NO region. Biloxi got 14 foot - probably due to being in the NE quadrant of NO at landfall though I couldn't say for sure. Winds in a cat 4 storm are serious indeed. Just ask the Far North Queenslanders when Larry arrived at high cat 4/low cat 5. It pretty much flattened billions of dollars of sugar cane and banana plantations and destroyed 90% of Innisfail - a town of 12,000 people. However, a storm surge is far more serious. Katrina demonstrates that.

BTW, NHC show the 5 day extended forecast threat zone as covering N Ireland and all of Scotland

Dunno. Depends what you define as a hit I guess.

The thought had crossed my mind. I'd imagine it's also crossed the minds of Nagin (NO Mayor) too...

Latest NHC shows average path threading the needle between Cuba and the Keys and heading NW in the general direction of New Orleans. On the one hand, > 3 day predictions are notoriously unreliable. On the other hand, NHC has been impressive this year with > 3 day predictions. If I was in the N Gulf of Mexico, I'd be getting a) worried depressed. Particularly given that strengthening is expected late day 3 onwards, possibly rapid. If the ridge around Florida holds, it'll keep the hurricane going more Westerly, which would at least spare New Orleans and the 150 miles each side of it. Official forecasts suggest that ridge will weaken, hence the trend to a NW direction. Here's hoping they're off, for the sake of the New Orleanians. I imagine the MS, LA, AL and TX governors must be starting to get a bit twitchy.

The worst case scenario would be a cat 5 hit on FL, then passing back out into the GOM... Incidentally, NASA don't seem that bothered about Ike; Hanna is considered to be out of the way so they've decided to park Atlantis on the launch pad. Right now they're about 2/3 of the way there along the road the launch pad gets driven along. 2 hours left before arrival at the launch tower. To yank it back in would take 6 hours. Seems like a very odd decision to me but hey. All they were worried about was Hanna... Atlantis is scheduled to launch on 8th Oct for the last servicing trip to Hubble; 34 days from now.

Incredible isn't it... 45 knots in 6 hours by my reckoning. Not a record, but extremely unusual to intensify that bloody quickly. Thank god I ain't in Florida. If I was, I'd be waking up in about 5-8 hours time from now and start flapping big time.